Welcome to IBIS Brokers! We’re thrilled that you’ve chosen to publish with us.

This Publisher Agreement (“Agreement”) is a binding contract between you and IBIS Brokers Inc. (“we”, “us”, “our”). It contains the rules and restrictions that govern your use of IBIS Brokers’s products and services (referred to below simply as “IBIS Brokers”) to distribute your newsletters and any content therein. If you use IBIS Brokers for this purpose, you are a Publisher and will need to create a Publisher account. In this Agreement, we refer to people that subscribe to your newsletters as Readers.

Using IBIS Brokers in any way means that you agree to this Agreement, and this Agreement will remain in effect while you use IBIS Brokers. This Agreement includes everything in this document, as well as those in the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and all other rules and procedures that may be published from time to time by us on IBIS Brokers. In the event of any conflict between this Agreement and any other terms and conditions you have agreed to with IBIS Brokers, this Agreement will prevail with respect to its subject matter.

You must be of legal age to form a binding contract to use IBIS Brokers. If you aren’t, you need to get your parent’s or guardian’s permission to use IBIS Brokers, and your parent or guardian will agree to this Agreement on your behalf.

If you’re agreeing to this Agreement on behalf of an organization or entity, you must be authorized to agree to this Agreement on that organization or entity’s behalf and bind them to this Agreement (in which case, the references to “you” and “your” throughout this document refer to that organization or entity).

If you don’t agree to all of the following, you may not use or access IBIS Brokers in any manner. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding the Agreement or our products and services, please contact us at [email protected].

Ownership

First and foremost, you own what you create. Any original content you post, upload, share, store, or otherwise provide to IBIS Brokers remains yours and is protected by copyright and any other applicable intellectual property laws.

However, please note that you agree to grant us a limited license to your content in order to enable us to operate IBIS Brokers. This license allows us to promote your content and help you succeed on IBIS Brokers.

You agree that this limited license includes a worldwide, nonexclusive, sublicensable, royalty-free, fully paid-up, transferable right (a) to market your newsletters and to permit others to use, access, and download your newsletters through IBIS Brokers, and (b) to use your tradename(s), trademark(s), and logo(s) in connection with the distribution and marketing of newsletters. For further details on this license, please see “Posting Content on IBIS Brokers” in the Terms of Use, which is incorporated into this Agreement by reference.

Pricing and Payments

You may offer your newsletters for free, or for a subscription fee, to be determined at your discretion. You may set and change the prices for your newsletter at your discretion through your Publisher account, though no price changes will apply retroactively.

If you choose to charge a subscription fee for your newsletter, you agree to the following:

• No Circumvention: You agree to process payments from Readers only in the manner determined by us. This includes using the third-party payment processing platform (“Payment Processor”) we choose, and following any other rules we specify. You may not circumvent your payment obligations to us by soliciting payment from a Reader outside of IBIS Brokers or by using any alternative method to collect subscription payments. This includes receiving payments for your newsletter through links to Paypal or a separate Patreon page. You agree to notify us immediately if you receive any such offer or solicitation to circumvent your payment obligations by contacting [email protected].
• Taxes: You agree that you shall bear and be responsible for any and all applicable federal, state, local, and foreign taxes, duties, tariffs, levies, withholdings, and similar assessments (including without limitation, sales, use, and value added taxes) related to your newsletter.
• Payment Processor: During the term of this Agreement, you agree that the Payment Processor may deduct any applicable Payment Processor fees on a rolling basis as you process subscription payments from Readers. You agree to these payments and further agree that all such payments are non-refundable.
• Information Upon Request: You will provide us with all requested data or information about you and your newsletters. This includes all payment and tax identification information, and you will ensure this information is accurate and up-to-date.

Relationships with Readers

You agree to the following rules around your relationships with Readers and other users of IBIS Brokers:

• Sole Responsibility: You agree that you are solely responsible for (and that we have no responsibility to you or to any third party for) any newsletters you distribute through IBIS Brokers and for the consequences of your actions by doing so. This means that you acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for ensuring distribution of your newsletters, our actions under this Agreement are solely to assist you in facilitating distribution.
• Stopping Publication or Deleting a Newsletter: You may delete one or more of your newsletters from IBIS Brokers at your discretion. However, please note that if you delete or stop publishing a newsletter before the end of a paid subscription term of a Reader, any and all obligations – including any refund obligations for the remaining portion of the subscription term – are solely your responsibility. We are under no obligation to issue any refunds to you or your Readers.
• Disputes: If there is a dispute between you and a user about payments or any other issue, you agree we are under no obligation to become involved and that we will not be held liable for any such dispute. We are not liable for your relationship with users, and we won’t provide you with any legal advice regarding such matters.
• Reporting a User: You can flag that a user that is violating our Terms of Use by sending an email to [email protected]. After you provide us with written notice of this violation, we will determine whether this user’s access to some or all of your newsletters should be suspended or terminated. We will also decide at our sole discretion whether this user’s access to the rest of IBIS Brokers will be suspended or terminated.
• Support: You shall provide to us a current email address to which we may direct inquiries from Readers and other IBIS Brokers users regarding your newsletters.

Acceptable Use

You are responsible for all your activity in connection with IBIS Brokers!

Make sure that you use IBIS Brokers in a manner that complies with the law and is permitted by this Agreement. If your use of IBIS Brokers is prohibited by applicable laws, then you aren’t authorized to use IBIS Brokers. We can’t and won’t be responsible for you using IBIS Brokers in a way that breaks the law.

You also represent and warrant that you will not publish newsletters or otherwise use IBIS Brokers in a manner that:

• is harmful, fraudulent, deceptive, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, objectionable, or in any way violates IBIS Brokers’s Content Guidelines outlined below;
• interferes with, disrupts, damages, or accesses in an unauthorized manner the devices, servers, networks, or other properties or services of IBIS Brokers or any third party;
• infringes, violates, or misappropriates any law, statute, ordinance or regulation or rights of any third party;
• spreads a virus, trojan horse, worm, time bomb, or other harmful computer code, file, or program.

Please review the “Acceptable Use Policy” detailed in the Terms of Use, as those rules are also incorporated into this Agreement by reference.

Content Guidelines

IBIS Brokers is a place for independent writing. We host and celebrate a diverse range of thought and discussion. The following guidelines outline what is and is not acceptable on IBIS Brokers. We have the exclusive right to interpret and enforce these guidelines, although we may consult outside experts, research, and industry best practices in doing so. If you encounter content that may be in breach of these guidelines or have any questions about them, you can email us at [email protected].

If we determine that any content is in breach of these guidelines, we may remove it, hide it from public view, or impose other restrictions. This is an evolving document: we reserve the right to update these Content Guidelines at our discretion and without notice.

Legal 

Please respect people’s intellectual property and don’t infringe on their privacy or any other legal rights. Don’t publish anything that violates laws or regulations.  You and you alone are responsible for the content you publish on IBIS Brokers, and liable for any harm caused by the content you publish.

In General 

We want IBIS Brokers to be a safe place for discussion and expression. At the same time, we believe that critique and discussion of controversial issues are part of robust discourse, so we work to find a reasonable balance between these two priorities. In all cases, IBIS Brokers does not allow harassment or threats.

Hate 

IBIS Brokers cannot be used to publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes. Offending behavior includes credible threats of physical harm to people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition.

Private Information 

You may not publish or post other people’s private information (such as a personal phone number or home address) without their express authorization and permission. We also prohibit threatening to expose private information or incentivizing others to do so. The publication of publicly accessible information is not a violation of this policy.

Plagiarism

Do not publish any material that was written or created by someone else and claim it as your own.

Impersonation

We don’t allow impersonation, which includes posing as another person, brand, or organization. This applies to IBIS Brokers itself: don’t use IBIS Brokers’s name, logo, or trademark in any way that misrepresents us or misleads others.

Harmful and Illegal Activities

We don’t allow content that promotes harmful or illegal activities, including material that advocates, threatens, or shows you causing harm to yourself, other people, or animals.

Spam and Phishing

We are vehemently anti-spam and anti-phishing. If you are importing a mailing list from another platform, you are required to ensure it’s made up of people who explicitly opted-in to receive emails from your specific publication. Don’t add people to your mailing list without their consent, and don’t import your contacts list or social graphs. Similarly, you may not create publications for spamming or phishing purposes. Don’t post spam when interacting with others on IBIS Brokers, such as in comments, discussion threads, or email replies.

IBIS Brokers is not an email marketing platform. We don’t permit publications that are set up with the sole purpose of advertising an external product or service, distributing offers and promotions, or similar activity.

Nudity, Porn, Erotica

We don’t allow porn or sexually exploitative content on IBIS Brokers. We do allow depictions of nudity for artistic, journalistic, or related purposes, as well as erotic literature. However, we may hide this content from IBIS Brokers’s discovery features, including search and on ibisbrokers.com.